Uhe 

HEART 
LINCOLN 


An  Intimate  Life-Story  of 
Abraham  Lincoln 


Waz/ne  Whipple 


Uhe 

HEART 


LINCOLN 


Wayne  Whipple 


LINCOLN  ROOM 

UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 
LIBRARY 


MEMORIAL 

the  Class  of  1901 

founded  by 

HARLAN  HOYT  HORNER 

and 

HENRIETTA  CALHOUN  HORNER 


THE  HEART  OF  LINCOLN 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2012  with  funding  from 

University  of  Illinois  Urbana-Champaign 


http://www.archive.org/detaijs/heartoflincolninOOwhip 


THE 
HEART  OF  LINCOLN 

AN  INTIMATE  LIFE-STORY  OF 
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 


By 
WAYNE  WHIPPLE 

AUTHOR  OF  "THE  STORY-LIFE  OF 
WASHINGTON,"  ETC. 


THE  JOHN  C.  WINSTON  COMPANY 

Chicago  PHILADELPHIA  Toronto 


THE  GREAT-HEART  SERIES 

By  WAYNE  WHIPPLE 

THE  HEART  OF  WASHINGTON 

An  Intimate  Life-Story  of  George  Washington 

THE  HEART  OF  LINCOLN 

An  Intimate  Life-Story  of  Abraham  Lincoln 

THE  HEART  OF  LEE 

An  Intimate  Life-Story  of  Robert  E.  Lee 

THE  HEART  OF  ROOSEVELT 

An  Intimate  Life-Story  of  Theodore  Roosevelt 

Price,  75  Cents  Each 


Copyright,  1923,  by  The  John  C.  Winston  Co. 

Printed  U.S.A. 


23 

IN  A  WORD 


Lincoln  was  "the  Great-Heart  of  the 
White  House."  Like  his  noble  namesake 
in  "The  Pilgrim's  Progress/'  he  proved  his 
right  to  this  title — 

"From  prairie  cabin  up  to  Capitol" — 

by  his  home  life,  with  playmates  and  com- 
rades throughout  his  homely  yet  beautiful 
career. 

His  whole  life  was  an  illustration,  in  letters 
of  living  fire,  of  the  immortal  words  he 
uttered  the  last  time  he  spoke  to  the  whole 
country  from  the  Eastern  Front  of  the 
Capitol — 

With  malice  toward  none,  with  charity 
for  all. 

Wayne  Whipple. 


THE  LIFE  CALENDAR  OF 
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 


Bom  at  Hodgensville,  Kentucky,  February 
12, 1809. 

Removed  to  Indiana,  1816. 

His  mother's  death,  1817. 

Removed  to  Illinois,  1830. 

Went  to  work  in  a  New  Salem  store,  1831. 

Captain  in  the  Black  Hawk  War,  April,  1832. 

Defeated  for  State  Legislature,  August,  1832. 

Appointed  Postmaster,  May,  1833. 

Appointed  Deputy  Surveyor,  November, 
1833. 

Elected  to  the  Legislature,  August,  1834. 

Removed  to  Springfield,  April,  1837. 

Re-elected  to  the  Legislature,  1836,  1838, 
1840. 

Married  Mary  Todd,  November  4,  1842. 

Elected  to  Congress,  1846. 

Helped  organize  the  Republican  Party,  1856. 

The  Lincoln-Douglas  Debates,  1858. 

Elected  President,  November  6,  1860. 

Left  Springfield  for  Washington,  February 
11,  1861. 

Inaugurated  President,  March  4,  1861. 

Emancipation  Proclamation,  September  22, 
1862,  effective  January  1,  1863. 

Delivered  the  Address  at  Gettysburg,  No- 
vember 19,  1863. 

Re-elected  President,  November  8,  1864. 

His  Second  Inauguration,  March  4,  1865. 

Assassinated,  April  14,  1865. 


THE  HEART  OF  LINCOLN 


THE  MOTHER-HEART 

Over  a  hundred  years  ago  a  little 
heart  began  to  beat  in  a  log  hovel  in  the 
backwoods  of  Kentucky — a  heart  that 
was  to  grow  big  and  swell  with  the 
hopes  and  throb  with  the  griefs  of  the 
nation  and  of  the  whole  world.  But 
its  mother 

"Gave  us  Lincoln  and  never  knew." 

It  is  doubtful  if  poor  Tom  Lincoln's 
wife  ever  raised  her  eyes  in  faith — as 
many  a  mother  does  hope  against  hope 
— that  her  son  might  become  the  first 
man  in  the  neighborhood  or  nation. 
There  seemed  to  be  nothing  ahead  in 
the  hard,  barren  lot  of  her  little  baby 
7 


THE  HEART  OF  LINCOLN 

boy  for  Nancy  Hanks  Lincoln  to  keep 
and  ponder  in  her  heart.  Nancy  was, 
"according  to  her  lights/'  a  God-fear- 
ing woman.  She  would  have  been  full 
content  to  have  this  baby  grow  up  a 
good  boy,  kind  to  his  father  and  mother 
and  sister  Sarah,  and  good  to  their 
backwoods  neighbors,  so  few  and  far 
between. 

Thomas  Lincoln,  the  child's  father, 
was  a  tough,  hearty,  well-meaning, 
shiftless,  thriftless  man  whom  his  wife 
had  taught,  after  their  marriage,  to 
scrawl  his  own  name. 

In  their  crude,  primitive  way,  Tom 
and  Nancy  Lincoln  were  religious. 
They  went  to  camp-meeting  together 
when  pioneer  preachers  like  Peter 
Cartwright  held  forth  with  such  vim 
and  power  that  sinners,  "under  convic- 
tion," writhed  on  the  ground  and 
finally  came  out  shouting  victory  over 
sin.  Both  the  Lincoln  baby's  parents 
8 


THE  MOTHER-HEART 

had  "got  the  power"  more  than  once. 
Thomas's  religion  was  so  practical  that 
Dennis  Hanks,  a  relative  of  his  wife, 
said  of  him: 

"Tom  thought  a  heap  o'  Nancy,  an' 
he  was  as  good  to  her  as  he  knowed  how. 
He  didn't  drink  or  swear  or  play  cyards 
or  fight — an'  them  was  drinkin',  cussin', 
quarrelsome  days.  Tom  was  popy- 
lar,  an'  he  could  lick  a  bully  if  he  had 
to." 

Both  the  Lincoln  boy's  parents  be- 
lieved in  and  talked  about  the  heart 
life.  They  had  heard  all  about  "ex- 
perimental religion"  at  camp-meeting. 
So,  whatever  else  Abraham  Lincoln 
may  have  lacked  in  his  backwoods  life, 
he  did  have  true  heart  culture.  His 
mother,  in  her  humble  way,  builded  bet- 
ter than  she  knew — a  palace  instead  of 
the  comfortable  cabin  she  longed  for  all 
her  sad,  disappointed  days  and  nights, 
by  teaching  little  Abe  to  be  good  and 
9 


THE  HEART  OF  LINCOLN 

kind  and  true.  She  would  have  been 
happy  if  she  could  have  known  that  her 
son  would  grow  to  be  a  local  exhorter 
or  a  pioneer  preacher.  Yet  out  of  her 
ignorance  and  privations  she  gave  her 
child  the  master-key  to  the  grandest  life 
of  practical  religion  ever  worked  out  in 
a  human  career. 

Even  the  dull,  hard  days  of  Lincoln's 
childhood  radiated  with  the  warmth  of 
his  boyish  heart.  He  was  happy  with 
his  sister,  two  years  older,  and  Sarah 
was  always  proud  of  her  brother. 
Their  mother  used  to  read  to  them  in 
the  lonely  twilight  hours  from  the  Bible, 
"The  Pilgrim's  Progress,"  and  others 
of  the  few  books  to  be  had  in  the  back- 
woods of  Kentucky  in  those  days. 

Little  Abe,  only  five  or  six  years  old, 
would  work  hard  and  long,  chopping, 
tugging  and  lugging  home  spicewood 
branches  that  would  make  the  firelight 
brighter  and  give  out  a  pleasant  smell 
10 


THE  MOTHER-HEART 

while  their  mother  read  to  them.  The 
brightness  and  sweetness  of  those  early 
memories  remained  with  Lincoln  al- 
ways. 

When  he  was  only  nine,  a  year  or  so 
after  the  removal  of  the  Lincoln  fam- 
ily to  Indiana,  he  came  to  know  the 
utter  desolation  of  home  without  a 
mother.  Nancy  Lincoln  was  taken 
with  a  strange  and  terrible  disease 
which  smote  the  early  settlers.  They 
called  it  "the  milk-sick"  because  it  at- 
tacked the  cattle  also.  The  mother 
knew  at  once  that  she  was  doomed  to 
die.  Calling  Sarah  and  Abraham  to 
the  side  of  her  rough  bed  of  poles,  bark 
and  leaves,  she  made  them  promise  to 
be  good  to  each  other  and  take  care  of 
their  poor  father. 

Little  Abe  helped  the  heartbroken 
Tom  saw  the  rough  boards  out  of  trees 
to  make  a  rude  coffin,  and  they  buried 
11 


THE  HEART  OF  LINCOLN 

the  body  of  the  good  wife  and  mother 
"without  benefit  of  clergy/'  Cousin 
Dennis  Hanks  related  of  little  Abe: 

"Sometimes  he  would  write  with  a 
piece  of  charcoal  on  the  point  of  a  burnt 
stick,  on  the  fence  or  floor.  We  got  a 
little  paper  at  the  country  town  and  I 
made  ink  out  of  blackberry  briar  root 
and  a  little  copperas  in  it.  I  made  his 
first  pen  out  of  a  turkey-buzzard 
feather.  Sometimes  he  would  write 
with  a  stick  in  the  white  sand  down  by 
the  crick  bank,  and  leave  it  till  the 
waves  would  blot  it  out." 

It  is  said  that  the  first  letter  the  boy 
ever  wrote  was  to  beseech  old  "Parson" 
Elkin,  who  had  known  their  mother  in 
their  "old  Kentucky  home,"  to  come 
and  preach  a  sermon  over  his  mother's 
grass-grown  grave  in  the  edge  of  the 
clearing.  This  the  good  old  man  did 
the  following  summer.  No  wonder  the 
12 


THE  MOTHER-HEART 

thoughtful,  grateful  little  boy  held  such 
a  mother  in  loving  remembrance,  ex- 
claiming fervently  to  a  friend  long 
afterward: 

"All  I  am  or  hope  to  be  I  owe  to  my 
sainted  mother !" 


13 


THE  HEART  IN  THE  HOME 

Thomas  Lincoln,  the  widower,  was 
lonely,  restless  and  moody.  All  that 
two  children  of  nine  and  eleven  could 
do,  Abraham  and  Sarah  did  to  comfort 
and  cheer  their  forlorn  father.  But  he 
disappeared  one  day  and  was  gone  sev- 
eral weeks, — on  a  longer  hunting  trip 
than  usual,  the  children  thought. 
When  he  returned  he  brought  a  new 
mother  with  three  children  of  her  own. 
The  Lincoln  boy  soon  learned  to  love 
his  stepmother,  who  was  not  long  in 
finding  out  that  "Abe  was  no  common 
boy."  Many  years  later  the  second 
Mrs.  Lincoln  said  of  her  illustrious 
stepson : 

"I  can  say  what  scarcely  one  mother 
in  a  thousand  can  say — Abe  never  gave 
14 


THE  HEART  IN  THE  HOME 

me  a  cross  word  or  look,  and  never  re- 
fused, in  fact  or  appearance,  to  do  any- 
thing I  asked  him.  I  had  a  son  John, 
who  was  raised  with  Abe.  Both  were 
good  boys,  but  I  must  say,  both  being 
now  dead,  that  Abe  was  the  best  boy 
I  ever  saw  or  expect  to  see." 

Mrs.  Sarah  Lincoln  had  good  reason 
to  speak  in  the  highest  praise  of  young 
Abraham's  devotion.  He  never  ceased 
to  be  grateful  for  her  sympathy  and 
kindness  to  him,  as  a  boy,  encouraging 
him  to  read  and  study,  and  persuading 
his  father  to  let  him  go  to  school  a  few 
weeks  now  and  then.  Tom  Lincoln 
and  the  rough  neighbors,  in  their  igno- 
rance, thought  Abe  took  to  reading 
books  only  to  shirk  work.  His  father 
thought  his  longing  to  go  to  school  was 
a  sign  of  "pure  laziness."  So  he  took 
him  out  of  school,  when  he  allowed  him 
to  go  at  all,  for  the  smallest  reasons. 
Strong  as  Abe  was,  and  work  as  hard 
15 


THE  HEART  OF  LINCOLN 

as  he  might,  he  could  never  earn  more 
than  twenty-five  or  thirty  cents  a  day. 
This  pitiful  pay  his  father  always  took 
and  kept. 

Most  youths  would  have  left  home  in 
disgust,  but  Abraham  stood  by,  help- 
ing heroically  and  making  his  step- 
mother's hard  life  with  his  shiftless 
father  comfortable  and  even  cheer- 
ful. 

Little  as  he  was  permitted  to  go  to 
school  there  are  many  stories  told  of 
Abe  Lincoln's  doings  there — not  mis- 
chievous acts,  nor  even  prodigies  of 
learning,  but  deeds  of  kindness  to 
everybody.  His  first  "composition" 
was  an  earnest  appeal  against  cruelty 
to  animals. 

He  was  always  the  champion  of  the 
helpless,  no  matter  how  humble  the  ob- 
ject of  any  ill-treatment  might  be. 
One  day  he  came  and  caught  a  group 
16 


THE  HEART  IN  THE  HOME 

of  mischievous  boys  putting  live  coals 
on  a  poor  mud-turtle's  back.  The  lads, 
and  several  girl  friends,  laughed  to  see 
the  turtle  moving  slowly  and  aimlessly 
about  in  its  surprise  and  misery. 
When  Abe  Lincoln  saw  what  was  going 
on  he  dashed  into  the  group  in  a  frenzy 
of  wrath,  snatched  the  shingle  from  the 
ringleader's  hand,  dashed  the  burning 
coals  off  the  poor  turtle's  back,  then  be- 
gan beating  the  boys  with  the  thin 
board.  When  he  had  scattered  them 
right  and  left,  according  to  one  of  the 
girls  who  witnessed  the  sudden  scene, 
"he  preached  against  such  cruelty"  and, 
with  angry  tears  in  his  deep  gray  eyes, 
told  the  snickering  offenders  that  a  ter- 
rapin's or  "an  ant's  life  is  as  sweet  to 
it  as  ours  is  to  us." 

Abraham's  heart  ached  for  the  un- 
fortunate, especially  when  others  held 
aloof  and  said  they  deserved  their  lot. 
17 


THE  HEART  OF  LINCOLN 

Late  one  cold  night  he,  with  several 
cronies,  found  a  man  they  knew  lying 
drunk  in  the  freezing  mud  beside  the 
road. 

"He  has  made  his  bed,"  said  the  other 
fellows,  "now  let  him  lie  in  it." 

But  to  Abe  this  seemed  monstrous. 
The  rest  went  on  to  their  homes  and 
left  him  to  his  thankless  task.  The 
poor  drunkard  might  freeze  to  death  if 
left  as  he  was.  But  he  was  big  and 
heavy — a  dead  weight.  One  of  his 
friends  described  this  act  of  mercy: 

"Abe,  seeing  he  was  to  have  no  help, 
bent  his  mighty  frame,  and,  taking  the 
big  man  in  his  long  arms,  carried  him 
a  great  distance  to  Dennis  Hanks's 
cabin.  There  he  built  a  fire,  warmed, 
and  rubbed,  and  nursed  him  through 
the  entire  night.  The  man  often  told 
John  Hanks  that  it  was  'mighty  clever 
in  Abe  to  tote  me  to  a  warm  fire  that 
cold  night/  and  was  very  sure  that 
18 


THE  HEART  IN  THE  HOME 

Abe's    strength   and   benevolence   had 
saved  his  life." 

He  could  not  see  any  one  in  need  of 
help  without  doing  all  he  could  to  ren- 
der aid.  They  used  to  laugh  about  his 
appearing  just  in  time  (he  was  not  in 
school  then)  to  prompt  Kate  Robey, 
the  "pretty  girl"  of  the  place,  whom  they 
said  Abe  was  "sweet  on."  The  word 
was  "defied."  The  class  had  spelled  it 
every  way  but  the  right  way  and 
Schoolmaster  Crawford  was  so  indig- 
nant with  them  all  that  he  had  an- 
nounced that  if  some  one  did  not  spell 
the  word  right  he  would  keep  all  of 
them  in  after  school.  Miss  Robey,  the 
last  in  the  class,  was  essaying  the  word, 
slowly  feeling  her  way  along:  "d-e-f-" 
she  had  said  and  was  about  to  add  a 
hesitant  "y,"  when,  as  she  herself  re- 
lated— "I  saw  Lincoln  at  the  window; 
he  had  his  finger  in  his  eye  and  a  smile 
on  his  face ;  I  immediately  took  the  hint 
19 


THE  HEART  OF  LINCOLN 

t 

that  I  must  change  the  letter  y  into  an 
i.  Hence  I  spelled  the  word — the  class 
let  out.  I  felt  grateful  to  Lincoln  for 
this  simple  thing." 

Schoolmaster  Crawford  was  not  the 
Crawford  who  lent  Abe  the  copy  of 
Weems's  "Life  of  Washington"  which 
he  read  nearly  all  night  before  the  blaz- 
ing fire,  then  went  to  bed,  laying  it  in 
a  chink  in  the  mortar  between  the  logs 
beside  his  humble  bed,  to  resume  the 
reading  as  soon  as  it  was  light  enough. 
A  storm  came  up  in  the  night  and  the 
book  was  soaked  with  rain  and  muddy 
mortar.  This  Mr.  Crawford,  known 
to  the  neighbors  as  "Old  Blue-Nose," 
made  young  Lincoln  buy  the  old  book 
at  a  high  price  and  "pull  fodder"  three 
days  at  twenty-five  cents  a  day  to  pay 
for  it! 

Abe  afterward  worked  for  this  hard 
master,  as  a  farm  hand,  while  his  sister 
20 


THE  HEART  IN  THE  HOME 

Sarah  was  there.  A  friend  wrote  of 
young  Lincoln's  employment  at  Jo- 
siah  Crawford's:  "Abe  was  reconciled 
to  his  situation  in  this  family  by  the 
presence  of  his  sister,  and  the  oppor- 
tunity it  gave  him  of  being  in  the  com- 
pany of  Mrs.  Crawford,  for  whom  he 
had  a  genuine  attachment." 

This  lady  told  many  stories  of  Lin- 
coln's sojourn  under  her  roof.  "Abe 
was  a  sensitive  lad,  never  coming  where 
he  was  not  wanted."  .  .  .  "He  was 
tender  and  kind,"  like  his  sister,  who 
was  at  the  same  time  her  maid-of-all- 
work.  Mrs.  Crawford  said  also  that 
"he  always  lifted  his  hat  and  bowed 
when  he  made  his  appearance."  And 
she  related  how,  when  he  "went  to  see 
the  girls,"  he  brought  in  the  biggest 
backlog  and  made  the  brightest  fire; 
and  how  the  young  people,  sitting 
around  it,  watching  the  way  the  sparks 
flew,  told  their  fortunes.  He  helped 
21 


THE  HEART  OF  LINCOLN 

pare    apples,    shell    corn    and    crack 
nuts. 

The  sports  he  preferred  were  those 
that  brought  men  together,  the  spelling- 
school,  the  husking  bee,  the  "raising"; 
of  all  these  he  was  the  life  by  his  wit, 
his  stories,  his  good  nature,  his  dog- 
gerel verses,  his  practical  jokes,  and  by 
a  rough  kind  of  politeness. 

The  other  boys  went  hunting,  of 
course.  But  young  Lincoln's  sympa- 
thy for  the  helpless  creatures  made  him 
a  poor  sportsman.  He  could  not  kill 
or  maim  the  humblest  of  God's  crea- 
tures. In  one  of  his  short  autobiogra- 
phies he  referred  to  himself  in  the  third 
person : 

"A  few  days  before  the  completion 
of  his  eighth  year,  in  the  absence  of  his 
father,  a  flock  of  wild  turkeys  ap- 
proached the  new  log  cabin;  and  Abra- 
ham, standing  inside,  shot  through  a 
22 


THE  HEART  IN  THE  HOME 

crack  and  killed  one  of  them.  He  has 
never  since  pulled  the  trigger  on  any- 
larger  game." 

This  was  when  scruples  about  inflict- 
ing suffering  on  the  lower  orders  of 
creation  were  thought  to  be  a  sickly  sort 
of  sentimentalism.  But  young  Lin- 
coln's heart  could  never  see  suffering 
without  yearning  to  bring  relief. 

While  the  family  were  moving  to 
Illinois  they  found  that,  after  their 
heavy  wagon,  drawn  by  two  yoke  of 
oxen,  had  crossed  an  ice-filled  stream, 
they  had  left  a  little  dog  on  the  other 
side.  It  was  late;  to  turn  back  with 
their  clumsy  team  and  lumbering  wagon 
was  out  of  the  question.  Night  was 
coming  on.  The  rest  of  the  migrating 
family  were  in  favor  of  going  on  and 
leaving  "the  little  nuisance"  to  his  fate. 
But  Abe  could  see  the  dog  running  up 
and  down  the  opposite  bank,  yelping  in 
23 


THE  HEART  OF  LINCOLN 

distress.  Long  afterward,  describing 
this  incident,  President  Lincoln  said: 
"I  could  not  bear  the  idea  of  aban- 
doning even  a  dog.  Pulling  off  shoes 
and  socks,  I  waded  across  the  stream, 
and  triumphantly  returned  with  the 
shivering  animal  under  my  arm.  His 
frantic  leaps  of  joy  and  other  evidences 
of  a  dog's  gratitude  amply  repaid  me 
for  all  the  exposure  I  had  undergone." 

Abraham  made  thirty  dollars  ped- 
dling "notions"  on  their  way  from  In- 
diana to  Illinois.  Although  he  had 
"turned  twenty-one"  on  the  way,  he 
seems  to  have  given  that  precious  sum 
— amounting  to  much  more  in  those 
days  than  now — to  make  his  father,  who 
had  always  kept  his  meager  earnings, 
and  his  stepmother  more  comfortable. 
He  would  not  leave  them,  though  the 
stepmother's  children  were  able  and 
should  have  provided  for  her,  until  he 
24 


THE  HEART  IN  THE  HOME 

and  John  Hanks  had  helped  raise  a 
commodious  cabin,  cleared  and  plowed 
fifteen  acres  around  it,  and  fenced  it  in 
with  the  black  walnut  rails  which  after- 
wards became  world-famous.  It  was  a 
few  of  those  historic  fence  rails  that 
pried  Abraham  Lincoln  into  the  presi- 
dency of  the  United  States.  Of 
course,  nothing  was  farther  than  the 
presidency  from  his  thoughts  while  he 
was  doing  his  utmost  to  help  the  father 
who  had  always  been  mean  to  him,  called 
him  lazy,  and  sneered  at  his  desire  to 
"get  an  eddication." 

After  settling  his  family  in  comfort 
young  Lincoln  hovered  near,  splitting 
rails  for  a  neighbor  to  earn  enough  cot- 
ton " jeans,"  dyed  with  butternut  stain, 
to  make  his  "freedom  suit"  of  clothes. 
This  was  his  preparation  for  that  fa- 
mous "winter  of  the  deep  snow,"  one  of 
the  coldest  and  hardest  winters  known 
even  in  those  days. 
25 


THE  HEART  OF  LINCOLN 

When  the  dutiful  and  forgiving  son 
had  established  his  reputation  for  kind- 
ness in  New  Salem,  and  had  been 
elected  to  the  Legislature  of  the  State; 
had  been  influential  in  having  the  capi- 
tal of  Illinois  removed  from  Vandalia 
to  Springfield  and  had  been  practising 
law  in  Springfield,  a  former  fellow 
clerk,  William  G.  Greene,  paid  a  visit 
to  Thomas  Lincoln,  still  living  in  a  log 
hut  in  Coles  County.  Old  Tom  Lin- 
coln even  then  inveighed  against  his 
son's  studious  ways.  He  said  to 
Greene: 

"I  s'pose  Abe's  still  a-foolin'  hisself 
with  eddication.  I  tried  to  stop  it  but 
he's  got  that  fool  idee  in  his  head,  an' 
it  can't  be  got  out.  Now  I  hain't  got 
no  eddication,  but  I  git  along  better'n 
if  I  had." 

In  1851,  after  Abraham  Lincoln  had 
served  a  term  in  Congress  at  Washing- 
26 


THE  HEART  IN  THE  HOME 

ton,  he  heard  that  his  father  was  very  ill. 
Unable,  on  account  of  legal  business,  to 
go  to  his  father's  side,  he  wrote  to  his 
stepbrother,  as  Thomas  Lincoln  could 
not  read  his  letter : 

"I  sincerely  hope  father  may  recover 
his  health ;  but  at  all  events,  tell  him  to 
remember  to  call  upon  and  confide  in 
our  merciful  Maker,  who  will  not  turn 
away  from  him  in  any  extremity.  He 
notes  the  fall  of  the  sparrow,  and  num- 
bers the  hairs  of  our  heads,  and  He  will 
not  forget  the  dying  man  who  puts  his 
trust  in  Him." 


27 


"WHO  LOVETH  WELL" 

It  was  while  clerking  in  a  country 
store  in  New  Salem,  that  young  Lin- 
coln earned  the  nickname  of  "Honest 
Abe."  By  the  kindness  of  his  heart  he 
endeared  himself  to  everybody  in  the 
village.  He  was  more  than  merely 
honest.  A  strictly  just  young  man 
would  have  saved  a  woman's  change  till 
she  came  to  the  store  again,  and  then 
would  have  made  an  honest  confession 
and  rectified  his  mistake.  But  Abra- 
ham Lincoln  could  not  eat  his  supper 
till  he  had  walked  across  the  prairie 
and  refunded  the  money  to  one  woman 
or  carried  to  another  all  the  tea  she  had 
paid  for. 

A  year  or  so  after  he  settled  in  New 
Salem  young  Lincoln  was  elected  cap- 
28 


"WHO  LOVETH  WELL" 

tain  in  the  Black  Hawk  war.  He  saw 
no  fighting,  but  Captain  Lincoln  had  a 
chance  to  champion  the  oppressed. 
The  settlers  had  no  love  for  "the  poor 
Indian."  They  did  not  hesitate  to  ex- 
press their  belief  that  "the  only  good 
Indian  is  the  dead  Indian." 

One  day  Lincoln  heard  some  of  his 
men  belaboring  a  forlorn,  helpless  old 
red  man,  and  preparing  to  string  him  up 
as  a  spy.  The  Indian  showed  them  a 
pass,  but  they  were  hustling  him  along 
and  threatening  him,  when  their  tall 
captain  sprang  out  among  them,  his 
eyes  blazing  with  indignation. 

"Fall  back,  men;  fall  back!"  he 
shouted,  his  voice  trembling  with  anger. 
"Let  the  Indian  go — he  hasn't  done 
anything — he  couldn't  hurt  you  if  he 
tried." 

"Say,  Cap'n,"  said  one  of  the  soi- 
diers — "that  ain't  fair.  We  know  what 
we're  doin\" 

29 


THE  HEART  OF  LINCOLN 

"Let  this  old  man  go.  If  you  want 
to  hurt  somebody,  take  it  out  o'  me. 
I'll  fight  you  all,  but  you  sha'n't  hurt  a 
helpless  Indian.  When  a  man  comes 
to  me  for  help  he's  going  to  get  it  if  I 
have  to  lick  the  whole  of  Sangamon 
County!" 

The  big  captain's  challenge  was  not 
accepted.  One  of  the  men  of  that  day, 
knowing  the  bitter  enmity  between  the 
early  western  settler  and  the  red  man, 
said  that  Captain  Abraham  Lincoln 
saved  the  life  of  that  Indian  from  the 
hatred  of  those  lawless  recruits  at  the 
risk  of  his  own.  But  Lincoln  thought 
little  of  his  own  heroism.  Indeed,  he 
hardly  recognized  the  act  as  courage- 
ous. His  own  sense  of  fair  play  and 
the  Indian's  unspoken  gratitude  were 
reward  enough. 

The  love  of  his  heart  went  out  to- 
wards the  unfortunate,  whether  man, 
30 


"WHO  LOVETH  WELL" 

woman,  bird  or  beast.  This  tenderness 
made  him  the  laughing-stock  of  his  le- 
gal friends  on  the  Eighth  Circuit  of 
Illinois.  The  lawyers  used  to  ride 
horseback,  or  drive  about  in  buggies 
from  one  county-seat  to  another, 
to  try  their  cases.  Lawyer  Lincoln 
had  as  keen  a  sense  of  the  ludicrous 
as  any  of  them,  but  he  often  fell 
behind  and  was  missed  for  hours  when 
his  sensitive  ear  detected  somewhere  a 
note  of  distress. 

Once  while  driving  through  the  mud 
of  Central  Illinois,  late  in  the  fall,  the 
country  lawyer  was  parrying  the  gibes 
of  his  companions  because  of  the  new 
clothes  he  wore,  for  Lincoln  did  not 
often  have  a  new  suit.  As  they  came 
within  a  few  miles  of  the  little  town  of 
Paris,  the  party's  attention  was  at- 
tracted from  Lincoln's  clothes  to  a  pig 
stuck  in  the  mud  and  squealing  lustily. 
Although  they  all  laughed  at  the  pork- 
31 


THE  HEART  OF  LINCOLN 

er's  absurd  plight,  the  animal's  real  dis- 
tress soon  overcame  even  Abraham 
Lincoln's  sense  of  the  humorous  and,  in 
spite  of  the  jeers  of  his  comrades,  he 
returned  to  the  rescue  of  the  hog,  mud- 
dying his  new  clothes  in  the  act  of  kind- 
ness. By  laying  fence-rails  in  the 
mire,  and  using  one  as  a  fulcrum,  he 
pried  the  heavy  animal  out  of  the  mud 
with  another  rail,  and  had  the  satisfac- 
tion of  hearing  its  grateful  grunts  as  it 
trotted  away,  flopping  its  ears.  Half 
ashamed  of  his  own  tenderness  he  tried 
to  ward  off  his  friends'  jokes  when  he 
caught  up  with  them  by  explaining: 
"If  that  farmer  lost  his  pig,  his  poor 
little  children  might  have  to  go  bare- 
foot all  winter." 

On  another  occasion  his  companions 

were  annoyed  and  not  a  little  amused  to 

see  him  hitch  his  horse  and  stride  around 

in  the  underbrush  to  catch  two  young 

32 


"WHO  LOVETH  WELL" 

birds  fluttering  on  the  ground  in  the 
edge  of  a  grove.  Having  caught  the 
fledglings,  he  hunted  from  tree  to  tree 
till  he  found  the  nest  from  which  they 
had  fallen,  and  put  the  birds  back  in  a 
place  of  safety. 

An  hour  or  so  later,  when  he  over- 
took his  friends  again,  they  laughed  at 
this  childish  way  of  wasting  time. 

"  Gentlemen, "  said  he,  "you  may 
laugh,  but  I  couldn't  have  slept  well  to- 
night if  I  had  not  saved  those  little 
birds.  Their  cries  and  those  of  their 
distracted  mother  would  have  rung  in 
my  ears." 

A  Springfield  lady  used  to  like  to  tell 
how  she  was  standing — as  a  child  at  her 
mother's  gate,  sobbing  because  the 
hackman  had  failed  to  come  and  take 
her  and  her  trunk  to  the  station  for  her 
first  outing  on  a  train,  to  visit  a  girl 
friend  in  a  neighboring  town.  Mr. 
33 


THE  HEART  OF  LINCOLN 

Lincoln  came  along  just  then  and  asked 
what  was  the  matter.  The  little  girl 
sobbed  out  the  heartrending  story  of 
her  disappointment. 

"Cheer  up,"  said  the  tall  lawyer, 
beaming  kindly  down  at  the  child; 
"we'll  have  to  hurry." 

Shouldering  the  trunk,  he  strode 
away,  while  the  little  girl  followed 
after  him,  drying  her  eyes  as  she  ran. 
They  were  just  in  time.  Putting  trunk 
and  girl  on  the  train,  he  kissed  her  good- 
by  and  told  her  to  "have  a  good  time." 

"It  was  just  like  him!"  exclaimed 
that  little  girl  grown  to  womanhood. 

When  Lincoln  was  a  country  lawyer 
almost  in  middle  life,  he  received  his 
first  five-hundred-dollar  fee.  What 
should  he  do  with  such  a  "bonanza"? 
He  decided  to  buy  a  quarter-section  of 
land  to  make  his  dear  old  stepmother 
comfortable  in  her  old  age.  She  could 
34 


"WHO  LOVETH  WELL" 

live  on  it  and  her  sons  could  till  the  soil, 
and  it  would  hold  the  old  woman's 
family  together.  When  he  told  a  law- 
yer-friend what  he  meant  to  do  with  so 
much  money,  the  man  remonstrated 
and  advised  him  to  give  the  old  lady  a 
life-interest  in  the  land  in  such  a  way 
that  it  would  revert  to  him  at  her  death. 
The  struggling  lawyer  was  indignant. 

"I  shall  do  no  such  thing,"  he  said. 
"It  is  a  poor  return,  at  best,  for  all  the 
good  woman's  devotion  and  fidelity  to 
me,  and  there  is  not  going  to  be  any 
halfway  business  about  it!" 

His  mother's  and  stepmother's  rela- 
tives were  all  illiterate  ne'er-do-wells, 
but  instead  of  avoiding  them,  as  none 
of  his  own,  he  seemed  to  feel  that  they 
were  the  more  in  need  of  his  sympathy 
and  help. 

During  the  great  debates  with  Ste- 
phen A.  Douglas,  Lincoln  arrived  at 
Charleston,  Illinois,  worn  out  with 
35 


THE  HEART  OF  LINCOLN 

speaking  and  travel.  When  his  friends 
saw  him  going  away  from  the  comforts 
of  the  hotel  to  call  on  a  distant  relative 
of  his  stepmother,  they  remonstrated, 
reminding  him  how  much  he  needed 
rest.  He  seemed  surprised  at  the  sug- 
gestion. 

"Why,"  he  exclaimed,  "Aunt's  heart 
would  be  broken  if  I  should  leave  town 
without  going  to  see  her!"  And  he  set 
out,  walking  through  the  rain  several 
miles  across  the  muddy  prairie  to  call 
on  a  remote  relative  of  his  stepmother. 

People  sometimes  argue  and  disagree 
about  Lincoln's  religion.  He  knew  his 
Bible  and  firmly  believed  in  prayer. 
But  his  belief  was  not  a  mere  form.  It 
was  the  heart  religion  described  by  the 
"Ancient  Mariner": 

"He  prayeth  well  who  loveth  well 
Both  man  and  bird  and  beast." 

36 


"WHO  LOVETH  WELL" 

It  was  a  true  index  to  his  character, 
that  when  no  one  hired  him  to  work  he 
could  not  be  content  with  resting  or 
reading,  much  as  he  loved  books. 
While  staying  in  the  house  of  one  of  his 
neighbors,  among  whom  "Honest  Abe" 
was  always  welcome,  he  would  rock  the 
cradle,  play  with  the  children,  joke  with 
the  young  folks  and  tell  his  best  stories 
to  the  aged.  It  was  said  of  him  in 
practical  paraphrase  of  the  scriptural 
definition  of  "pure  religion  and  unde- 
filed,"  that  he  used  to  "visit  the  father- 
less and  widows  in  their  affliction,  and" 
— chop  their  wood! 


37 


THE  HEART  OF  LOVE 

Mr.  Lincoln  used  to  talk  of  love 
among  the  dusty  books  of  his  dingy 
law-office. 

"Did  you  ever  write  out  a  story  in 
your  mind?"  he  asked  a  friend  one  day. 
"I  did  when  I  was  a  little  codger.  One 
day  a  wagon,  with  a  lady  and  two  girls 
and  a  man,  broke  down  near  us,  and 
while  they  were  fixing  up,  they  cooked 
in  our  kitchen.  The  woman  had  books 
and  read  us  stories,  and  they  were  the 
first  of  the  kind  I  ever  heard. 

"I  took  a  great  fancy  to  one  of  the 
girls,  and  when  they  were  gone  I 
thought  of  her  a  great  deal,  and  one 
day,  when  I  was  sitting  out  in  the  sun 
by  the  house,  I  wrote  out  a  story  in  my 
38 


THE  HEART  OF  LOVE 

mind.     I  think  that  was  the  beginning 
of  love  with  me." 

His  first  love  was  Ann,  the  comely 
daughter  of  the  keeper  of  Rutledge's 
Tavern,  where  he  boarded,  for  a  time, 
at  New  Salem.  Abraham  and  Ann 
studied  grammar  together,  and  the  tall 
boarder  soon  lost  his  heart.  This  must 
have  been  when  he  learned  how  she  had 
been  treated  by  her  affianced,  a  young 
man  named  McNamar,  who  had  gone 
east  and  had  not  even  been  heard  of  for 
a  long  time.  No  doubt  the  element  of 
pity  intensified  his  affection  for  the 
young  girl.  William  O.  Stoddard,  at  one 
time  President  Lincoln's  private  secre- 
tary, has  written  fully  of  this  love  affair : 

"It  is  not  known  precisely  when  Ann 
Rutledge  told  her  suitor  that  her  heart 
was  his,  but  early  in  1835  she  permitted 
it  to  be  understood  that  she  would 
marry  Abraham  Lincoln  as  soon  as  his 
39 


THE  HEART  OF  LINCOLN 

legal  studies  should  be  completed. 
That  was  a  glorious  summer  for  him; 
the  brightest,  sweetest,  hopef ulest  he  yet 
had  known.  It  was  the  fairest  time  he 
was  ever  to  see;  for  even  now,  as  the 
golden  days  came  and  went,  they  brought 
increasing  shadow  on  their  wings. 

"On  the  25th  of  August,  1835,  just 
before  the  summer  died,  Ann  Rutledge 
passed  away  from  earth — but  she  never 
faded  from  the  heart  of  Abraham  Lin- 
coln, and  the  shadow  of  that  great  dark- 
ness never  entirely  lifted  from  him.  It 
was  then  that  he  discovered,  in  a  strange 
collection  of  verses,  those  lines  of  Wil- 
liam Knox,  ever  afterward  his  favorite 
poem,  beginning: 

"  'Oh  why  should  the  spirit  of  mortal  be  proud?' 

"There    were    well-grounded    fears 

that  he  might  do  himself  some  injury, 

and  a  watch  was  vigilantly  kept.     He 

had  been,  to  that  hour,  a  man  of  mar- 

40 


THE  HEART  OF  LOVE 

velous  poise  and  self-control,  but,  when 
they  came  and  told  him  she  was  dead, 
his  heart  and  will,  and  even  his  brain 
itself  gave  way.  He  was  frantic  for  a 
time,  seeming  to  lose  even  the  sense  of 
his  own  identity,  and  all  New  Salem 
said:  'Abe  Lincoln's  insane!'  He  pit- 
eously  moaned  and  raved: 

"  'I  never  can  be  reconciled  to  have 
the  snow,  rain  and  storms  beat  upon  her 
grave.' " 

Too  much  has  been  made,  by  several 
of  Lincoln's  biographers,  of  his  so- 
called  love  affair  with  Mary  Owens. 
Years  after  Miss  Rutledge's  death 
Miss  Owens  came  to  visit  her  married 
sister  in  New  Salem.  The  sister  an- 
nounced her  intention  of  making  a 
match  between  Mary  and  Abe  Lincoln. 
That  of  itself  was  enough  to  prevent 
their  caring  much  for  each  other. 
Lawyer  Lincoln  called  on  Miss  Owens, 
41 


THE  HEART  OF  LINCOLN 

and  wrote  several  letters  to  her  after  his 
removal  to  Springfield,  apparently  con- 
sidering himself  under  a  sort  of  obliga- 
tion to  marry  the  girl  on  account  of  all 
her  sister  had  said. 

But  Miss  Mary  Owens  was  a  young 
lady  of  spirit,  as  well  as  good  looking 
and  intelligent,  and  she  promptly  cut 
the  Gordian  knot  by  refusing  her  reluc- 
tant suitor  outright. 

When  Lawyer  Lincoln  went  to 
Springfield  to  practise  law,  he  had  been 
a  member  of  the  State  Legislature  at 
Vandalia,  and  had  been  the  leader  of  a 
group  of  tall  men,  known  as  "the  Long 
Nine,"  who  brought  about  the  removal 
of  the  State  capital  to  Springfield. 
But  the  young  lawyer  from  New  Salem 
was  poor.  At  first  he  slept  in  the  loft 
above  the  store  of  a  young  Kentuckian 
named  Joshua  Speed  until  he  was  able 
to  occupy  better  quarters.  About  this 
42 


THE  HEART  OF  LOVE 

time  Speed  hired,  for  "sweeper-out" 
and  clerk,  a  lad  they  called  "Billy" 
Herndon,  who  soon  developed  aspira- 
tions of  his  own. 

"Give  the  boys  a  chance"  was  a  motto 
of  Lawyer  Lincoln's.  He  started  in  to 
help  "Billy"  become  a  lawyer,  as  Major 
Stuart  had  helped  him. 

After  he  went  into  partnership  with 
Major  Stuart,  Mr.  Lincoln  kept  on 
helping  Billy  in  his  law  studies.  While 
he  was  Judge  Logan's  partner  Lincoln 
learned  to  be  a  better  lawyer  himself, 
and  he  used  all  his  knowledge  for  the 
benefit  of  Billy  Herndon.  When  the 
law  partnership  of  Logan  and  Lincoln 
was  dissolved,  Mr.  Lincoln,  against  the 
advice  of  his  friends,  took  Billy  into  the 
firm  and  hung  out  a  "shingle"  with 


LINCOLN  &  HERNDON 
43 


THE  HEART  OF  LINCOLN 

in  bright,  fresh  letters  which  remained, 
though  tarnished,  after  the  senior  part- 
ner had  gone  to  Washington  to  be 
President  of  the  United  States.  Billy, 
with  all  his  foster-partner's  help,  could 
not  bear  anything  like  half  the  burden 
of  the  business.  He  could  stay  in  the 
office,  make  engagements,  entertain 
waiting  clients,  and  try  easy  cases  in  the 
senior  partner's  absence.  He  did  not 
even  sweep  or  dust  the  office  as  he 
had  done  in  Speed's  store.  But  all 
this  made  no  difference  to  Mr.  Lin- 
coln. 

Billy  had  little  occasion  to  keep 
books,  for  when  the  chief  collected  a  fee 
he  would  come  in,  seat  himself  at  the 
rickety  little  office  table  and  say, 
"Come,  sit  down,  Billy,  let's  divide." 

Then  he  would  proceed  to  count  out 
what  he  was  pleased  to  call  "Herndon's 
half,"  and  push  it  across  to  Billy's  side 
of  the  table. 

44 


THE  HEART  OF  LOVE 

The  largest  fee  Mr.  Lincoln  ever  re- 
ceived was  five  thousand  dollars  from  a 
great  railroad  lawsuit,  and  Herndon 
records  in  his  "Life  of  Lincoln":  "He 
gave  me  my  half  as  coolly  as  he  would 
have  given  a  few  cents  for  a  paper." 

Among  those  who  had  been  kind  to 
Abe  Lincoln  in  the  early  New  Salem 
days  was  Jack  Armstrong,  the  Clary's 
Grove  bully  the  new  clerk  had  to  fight 
to  a  finish  to  establish  his  reputation  as 
a  young  man  of  parts  in  that  rough 
community.  Armstrong  and  his  wife, 
Hannah,  became  staunch  friends  and 
admirers  of  "Honest  Abe."  When 
Abraham  Lincoln  was  out  of  employ- 
ment he  often  visited  the  Armstrongs. 
After  he  became  famous  it  was  Mrs. 
Armstrong's  boast  that — 

"Abe  would  come  out  to  our  house, 
drink  milk,  eat  mush,  corn-bread  and 
butter,  bring  the  children  candy,  and 
45 


THE  HEART  OF  LINCOLN 

rock  the  cradle  while  I  got  him  some- 
thing to  eat. 

"I  foxed  his  pants,  and  made  his 
shirts.  .  .  .  He  would  nurse  babies,  and 
do  anything  to  accommodate  anybody. 
Lincoln  has  stayed  at  our  house  two  or 
three  weeks  at  a  time." 

When  the  baby  Lincoln  had  rocked 
grew  up,  he  got  into  sore  trouble.  He 
was  accused  of  murder.  When  Law- 
yer Lincoln  learned  of  this  he  wrote  to 
Hannah,  the  boy's  mother — for  Jack 
Armstrong  was  now  dead,  the  follow- 
ing letter: 

"Springfield,  111.,  Sept.,  1857. 
"Dear  Mrs.  Armstrong: 

"I  have  just  heard  of  your  deep 
affliction  and  the  arrest  of  your  son  for 
murder. 

"I  can  hardly  believe  that  he  can  be 
capable  of  the  crime  alleged  against  him. 
"It  does  not  seem  possible.     I  am 
46 


THE  HEART  OF  LOVE 

anxious  that  he  should  be  given  a  fair 
trial,  at  any  rate;  and  gratitude  for 
your  long-continued  kindness  to  me  in 
adverse  circumstances  prompts  me  to 
offer  my  humble  services  gratuitously 
in  his  behalf. 

"It  will  afford  me  an  opportunity  to 
requite,  in  a  small  degree,  the  favors  I 
received  at  your  hand,  and  that  of  your 
lamented  husband,  when  your  roof  af- 
forded me  a  shelter,  without  money  and 
without  price." 

The  Armstrong  trial  became  a  cele- 
brated case.  Mr.  Lincoln  drew  out  the 
chief  accusing  witness,  who  testified 
that  he  saw  "Duff"  Armstrong  strike 
the  fatal  blow  by  moonlight — then 
proved  by  the  almanac  that  the  moon 
was  not  shining  at  that  hour. 

Armstrong  was  acquitted.  It  was  a 
labor  of  love  for  Lawyer  Lincoln. 
The  young  man  and  his  widowed 
47 


THE  HEART  OF  LINCOLN 

mother  sobbed  in  each  other's  arms, 
then  turned  to  thank  their  tall  ben- 
efactor. "Duff"  Armstrong  pushed 
through  the  crowd  and  grasped  his  de- 
liverer's hand,  but  he  could  not  speak. 
"Tears  of  gratitude  filled  the  young 
man's  eyes,  expressing  far  more  than  he 
could  have  done  by  words." 

"The  course  of  true  love  never  did 
run  smooth"  with  Abraham  Lincoln. 
While  he  was  in  partnership  with  Ma- 
jor Stuart,  his  partner's  cousin,  Mary 
Todd,  came  from  Louisville,  Kentucky, 
to  live  with  her  sister,  Mrs.  Ninian  W. 
Evans,  in  Springfield. 

Of  course,  the  rising  young  attorney 
soon  met  the  Kentucky  belle.  Miss 
Todd  was  bright,  witty  and  accom- 
plished. She  was  at  home  in  good  so- 
ciety and  seemed  to  possess  everything 
Mr.  Lincoln  so  sadly  lacked.  From 
their  first  meeting  he  became  her  ardent 
48 


THE  HEART  OF  LOVE 

admirer.  He  found  her  brilliant,  viva- 
cious and  ambitious.  She  had  boasted 
to  her  girl  friends  that  she  meant  some 
day  to  be  mistress  of  the  White  House. 

There  was  apparent  rivalry  between 
the  "Little  Giant"  of  the  West,  Ste- 
phen A.  Douglas,  and  Abraham  Lin- 
coln. These  two  men  were  opposites 
in  build,  temperament,  education  and 
character,  and  became  life-long  com- 
petitors. No  doubt  it  was  Lincoln's 
heart  and  sincerity  that  finally  won  the 
favor  of  Mary  Todd.  They  were  re- 
ported to  be  engaged.  They  had  an 
understanding  at  least.  But  he  was 
morbid,  and  often  melancholy,  and  she 
was  high-strung.  Their  "understand- 
ing" soon  became  a  grievous  misunder- 
standing. 

Lincoln  grew  more  and  more  melan- 
choly, and  his  bosom  friend  invited  him 
to  Kentucky,  where  Speed  was  then  liv- 
ing, happily  married.  There  the  sad 
49 


THE  HEART  OF  LINCOLN 

swain  recovered,  to  a  degree,  his  men- 
tal balance.  Returning  to  Springfield 
he  threw  himself  into  politics.  He 
published  a  humorous  letter,  in  the 
county  paper,  against  the  State  Audi- 
tor, James  Shields,  a  vain,  pompous 
little  Irishman,  and  signed  it  "Rebecca 
of  the  Lost  Townships." 

This  was  followed  by  another  "Re- 
becca" letter,  not  written  by  Lincoln, 
but  by  Miss  Todd  and  a  girl  friend. 
The  points  in  it  were  sharp,  not  politi- 
cal as  Lincoln's  had  been,  but  personal 
and  therefore  offensive.  Shields  called 
on  the  editor  in  a  rage  and  demanded 
the  name  of  the  writer. 

Lincoln  told  the  editor  to  give  his 
name  only,  thus  making  himself  re- 
sponsible for  both  letters.  Shields 
challenged  him  to  a  duel.  Lincoln  ac- 
cepted, choosing  ridiculous  weapons, 
and  imposing  absurd  conditions  which 
revealed  the  fact  that,  though  Shields 
50 


THE  HEART  OF  LOVE 

would  have  done  his  best  to  kill  Lincoln, 
he  was  unwilling  even  to  hurt  Shields. 
When  they  came  face  to  face,  explana- 
tions were  possible,  and  the  foolish  duel 
was  averted. 

Miss  Todd's  heart  must  have  softened 
toward  the  tall  knight  who  had  stood 
ready  to  risk  his  life  for  her  sake,  for 
they  were  married  early  in  the  Novem- 
ber following  the  summer  of  the  "Re- 
becca" letters. 

The  story,  however,  that  Lincoln 
failed  to  appear  at  his  own  wedding, 
after  Miss  Todd's  family  had  prepared 
the  marriage  supper  and  Mary  had 
donned  her  bridal  attire,  is  not  true. 
This  story  first  appeared  in  Herndon's 
"Life  of  Lincoln"  and  has  been  re- 
peated till  it  is  believed  by  millions  of 
people,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  it  has 
been  denied  and  disproved  a  hundred 
times  by  intimate  friends  of  the  fami- 
lies concerned. 

51 


LIBRARY 

UNJVEIlsnY  W  ILLINOIS 


THE  HEART  OF  LINCOLN 

Mrs.  Lincoln  joined  her  husband's 
friends  in  opposing  his  undue  consid- 
eration for  William  Herndon.  But 
this  was  useless.  Mr.  Lincoln  would 
brook  no  interference  with  "Billy,"  who 
did  not  seem  to  appreciate  the  kindness 
of  his  chief.  He  did  not  even  keep  the 
office  in  decent  order. 

Aside  from  his  failure  to  do  what  he 
could  not,  and  his  disposition  not  to  do 
what  he  could,  Billy  took  to  drinking. 
This  gave  his  fatherly  partner  the  keen- 
est anxiety,  for  Lincoln  was  a  temper- 
ance man.  He  was  more  anxious  for 
Billy's  sake  than  for  his  own,  detrimen- 
tal as  were  the  junior  partner's  habits 
to  their  business. 

His  wife's  ambition  and  tact  led 
Mr.  Lincoln  to  run  for  Congress,  and 
he  was  elected  over  the  Rev.  Peter 
Cartwright,  the  famous  backwoods 
preacher.  While  he  was  away  at  the 
national  capital  Herndon  got  into 
52 


THE  HEART  OF  LOVE 

petty  complications,  and  well-nigh 
ruined  their  business  by  drinking  and 
negligence.  Not  content  with  that,  he 
wrote  complaining  letters  to  the  senior 
partner  in  Washington,  Congress- 
man Lincoln  wrote  long  and  patient  re- 
plies to  "poor  Billy,"  describing  all  that 
was  going  on  around  him  and  treating 
the  young  man  at  home  as  if  he  were  the 
sufferer  instead  of  the  offender.  He 
humored  Billy  thus,  still  hoping  for  bet- 
ter things. 

After  returning  to  Springfield — he 
declined  to  run  for  Congress  again  be- 
cause of  other  men  who  needed  and  de- 
served the  honor! — he  found  matters 
going  from  bad  to  worse.  Instead  of 
taking  up  the  work  where  he  had  left 
off,  he  had  to  revive  it.  Billy,  besides 
receiving  half  the  earnings  of  the  busi- 
ness, was  a  drain  upon  it,  for  Mr.  Lin- 
coln had  to  bail  him  out  and  pay  dam- 
53 


THE  HEART  OF  LINCOLN 

ages  in  saloons  where  Herndon  and  his 
rowdy  associates  had  broken  mirrors 
and  furniture  during  their  nightly 
carouses. 

When  Billy  failed  to  show  up  at  the 
office  in  the  morning,  Mr,  Lincoln  was 
in  suspense  until  he  learned  what  had 
become  of  him.  Following  his  fears  he 
had  little  difficulty  in  finding  his  erring 
partner.  These  experiences  recurred 
with  sickening  regularity. 

An  acquaintance  heard  Mr.  Lincoln 
say  to  himself  one  morning,  as  he  sprang 
up  the  courthouse  steps  two  at  a  time, 
"I  can't  let  Billy  go  to  jail!" 

Of  course,  Herndon  would  cry  and 
promise  to  amend,  and  his  soft-hearted 
partner  would  grasp  both  the  young 
man's  hands  in  his  and,  choking  back  a 
sob,  his  deep  gray  eyes  filling  with 
tears,  he  would  say: 

"Z  believe  in  you,  Billy.  I'm  sure 
you'll  do  better  now.  Let  this  be  a  les- 
54 


THE  HEART  OF  LOVE 

son  to  you — a  warning!     Brace  up,  my 
dear  boy,  and  we'll  beat  yet." 

But  Abraham  Lincoln's  great,  yearn- 
ing heart  was  hoping  against  hope. 

Mrs.  Lincoln's  devotion,  thrift  and 
ambition  must  have  done  much  to  in- 
spire and  advance  her  husband  in  his 
wonderful  career.  She  once  said  of 
him: 

"Mr.  Lincoln  was  the  kindest  man 
and  the  most  loving  husband  in  the 
world." 

Whenever  anything  occurred  that 
would  gratify  her  ambition,  his  first 
thought  was  of  "little  Mary."  When 
he  received  the  telegram  announcing  his 
nomination  for  the  presidency  of  the 
United  States,  he  exclaimed,  as  he 
pulled  himself  out  of  a  crowd  of  con- 
gratulating fellow-citizens : 

"There's  a  little  woman  down  on 
Eighth  street  who  will  be  glad  to  hear 
55 


THE  HEART  OF  LINCOLN 

the  news — you  must  excuse  me  while  I 
tell  her." 

The  night  of  November  6,  1860, 
when  Mr.  Lincoln  learned,  about  mid- 
night, that  he  was  elected  President,  he 
hurried  home  and  burst  into  the  room 
in  which  his  wife  lay  asleep,  exclaim- 
ing: 

"Mary!  Mary!  Mary!  WE'RE 
ELECTED!" 

Soon  after  this  an  old  woman,  whom 
Mr.  Lincoln  knew  as  "Aunt  Sally," 
came  from  New  Salem  to  say  good-by 
to  "Honest  Abe,"  before  he  "went  to 
Washington  to  be  the  President."  The 
President-elect  was  standing  in  the 
spacious  room  placed  at  his  disposal  in 
the  State  Capitol,  talking  with  two  men 
of  national  renown,  when  the  old 
woman  came  in,  shy  and  embarrassed. 
He  saw  his  old  friend  at  once  and  hur- 
ried across  the  room  to  meet  her.  Tak- 
56 


THE  HEART  OF  LOVE 

ing  both  her  hands  in  his,  he  led  her  to 
the  seat  of  honor.  Presenting  his  dis- 
tinguished visitors  to  her,  he  tried  ten- 
derly to  reassure  her  and  put  her  at  ease 
by  saying,  as  reported  by  Miss  Tarbell : 

"Gentlemen,  this  is  a  good  old  friend 
of  mine.  She  can  bake  the  best  flap- 
jacks you  ever  tasted  for  she  has  baked 
them  for  me  many  a  time." 

After  quite  a  long  stay  Aunt  Sally 
pulled  out  from  her  basket  a  huge  pair 
of  coarse  yarn  socks  she  had  knit  for 
Mr.  Lincoln.  Taking  the  stockings  by 
the  toes,  he  held  one  down  each  side  of 
his  gigantic  boots,  exclaiming: 

"She's  got  my  latitude  and  longitude 
about  right,  hasn't  she?" 

Then,  in  simple  words,  he  expressed 
his  thanks  to  the  good  old  woman  for 
her  thoughtful  kindness,  promised  to 
wear  those  very  socks  in  the  White 
House,  and  to  think  of  her  as  he  did  so. 

Great  joker  as  Mr.  Lincoln  was, 
57 


THE  HEART  OF  LINCOLN 

with  his  dominant  sense  of  humor,  he 
was  incapable  of  winking  behind  the 
back  of  any  person  who  had  been  kind 
to  him.  He  never  said  or  did  things 
for  mere  politeness'  sake.  He  had 
none  of  the  veneer  of  society,  but  pos- 
sessed the  solid  heart  of  oak. 


58 


"GREAT-HEART"  IN  THE  WHITE 
HOUSE 

On  that  memorable  Monday,  Febru- 
ary 11th,  1861,  President-elect  Lincoln 
took  his  leave  of  Springfield,  at  the 
railroad  station,  with  the  following 
brief  utterance — according  to  the  sten- 
ographic report  of  a  newspaper  corre- 
spondent, who  was  himself  an  avowed 
infidel: 

"My  Friends: — No  one  not  in  my 
position  can  appreciate  the  sadness  I 
feel  at  this  parting.  To  these  people 
I  owe  all  that  I  am.  Here  I  have  lived 
more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century;  here 
my  children  were  born,  and  here  one  of 
them  lies  buried.  I  know  not  how  soon 
I  shall  see  you  here  again.  A  duty  de- 
59 


THE  HEART  OF  LINCOLN 

volves  upon  me  which  is,  perhaps, 
greater  than  that  which  has  devolved 
upon  any  man  since  the  days  of  Wash- 
ington. He  would  never  have  suc- 
ceeded except  for  the  aid  of  Divine 
Providence,  upon  which  he  at  all  times 
relied.  I  feel  that  I  cannot  succeed 
without  the  same  Divine  aid  which  sus- 
tained him,  and  in  the  same  Almighty 
Being  I  place  my  reliance  for  support; 
and  I  hope  you,  my  friends,  will  pray 
that  I  may  receive  that  Divine  assist- 
ance, without  which  I  cannot  succeed, 
but  with  which  success  is  certain. 
I  bid  you  all  an  affectionate  farewell." 

At  Indianapolis,  on  their  roundabout 
route  to  Washington,  Robert  Lincoln, 
then  a  youth  of  seventeen,  lost  the  trav- 
eling bag  which  contained  his  father's 
Inaugural  Address.  The  Honorable 
Robert  Todd  Lincoln,  during  the  cen- 
tennial celebration  of  his  father's  birth, 
60 


'GREAT  HEART" 


made  the  following  correction  of  this 
popular  but  mistakenly  told  story : 

"In  the  first  place,  it  did  not  happen 
at  Harrisburg,  as  is  generally  reported, 
but  at  Indianapolis.  When  we  entered 
the  old  Bates  House  there  I  set  my 
valise  down  with  those  of  the  others  of 
our  party,  in  the  hotel  office,  and  they 
were  all,  mine  among  the  rest,  carried 
away  and  put  in  a  small  room  back  of 
the  clerk's  desk.  I  soon  missed  the  bag 
and  was  greatly  alarmed  because  Father 
had  confided  to  me  its  precious  contents, 
the  only  copy  of  his  Inaugural,  which 
he  had  written  before  leaving  Spring- 
field. 

"  I  went  at  once  and  reported  the  loss 
to  him  and,  together,  we  had  a  search 
made.  The  missing  valise  was  soon 
found.  There  is  no  truth  whatever  in 
the  story  that  Father  opened  another 
'gripsack'  just  like  his,  and  found  'a 
flask  of  whiskey,  a  pack  of  cards  and  a 
61 


THE  HEART  OF  LINCOLN 

soiled  paper  collar!'  Nor  did  he  take 
out  the  Inaugural,  put  it  in  his  pocket, 
and  tell  a  cheap,  ill-fitting  story,  as  one 
biographer,  whose  data  were  furnished 
him  by  Herndon,  states  with  great 
elaboration. 

"This  is  what  actually  happened: 
He  handed  me  the  bag,  and  said  gently, 
'There,  Bob,  see  if  you  can't  take  care 
of  it  now.'  That  was  more  like  him. 
He  believed  in  giving  his  own  boys,  as 
well  as  others,  a  chance.  He  showed 
that  he  trusted  me  with  his  most  valued 
possession,  and  you  may  depend  on  it 
I  was  faithful  to  that  trust!" 

Abraham  Lincoln  went  to  Washing- 
ton with  an  aching  heart.  He  lived 
every  day  as  if  it  were  his  last  on  earth. 
He  had  much  before  him  which  he  hoped 
to  be  able  to  do.  He  found  chaos 
everywhere — -a  panic  of  statecraft  in 
the  North,  an  epidemic  of  anarchy  in 
62 


'GREAT  HEART" 


the  South.  The  leading  minds  of  the 
country  seemed  to  have  gone  daft. 
They  advocated  the  most  foolhardy 
schemes.  Seward,  his  greatest  rival, 
now  his  Secretary  of  State,  actually 
proposed  that  President  Lincoln  should 
keep  his  hands  off  the  helm  and  let  him, 
Seward,  steer  the  Ship  of  State !  Sew- 
ard and  Chase,  and  later,  McClellan 
and  Stanton,  each  felt  that  he,  himself, 
alone,  was  divinely  appointed  to  save 
the  Union. 

They  did  not  believe  in  their  chief. 
The  party  that  had  elected  Lincoln 
looked  on  with  misgivings.  They  felt 
that  the  people,  after  all,  had  been  car- 
ried away  by  their  boundless  enthusi- 
asm, so  that  the  "Rail- Splitter"  had 
been  washed  up  into  the  White  House 
by  a  tidal  wave  of  popular  frenzy,  and 
left  there  high  and  dry  like  a  stranded 
sea  monster  out  of  his  natural  element. 

When  President  Lincoln's  subordi- 
63 


THE  HEART  OF  LINCOLN 

nates  insulted  him  by  patronizing  him, 

"He  knew  to  bide  his  time." 

He  replied  to  Secretary  Seward  with 
the  masterful  tenderness  he  had  shown 
to  his  stepbrother  ten  years  earlier, 
when  John  proposed  a  scheme  about  as 
foolish  and  visionary  as  the  Secretary 
of  State's  plan  for  getting  up  a  war 
with  England! 

Mr.  Lincoln  had  practised  ruling  his 
own  spirit  and  forgiving  in  advance; 
in  his  dealings  with  his  father,  he  had 
learned  many  lessons  in  self -repression, 
self-denial  and  self-sacrifice,  while 
smarting  under  his  sense  of  the  injus- 
tice done  him  when  he  was  called  lazy 
and  a  shirk,  as  he  lay  beside  his  wooden 
shovel,  trying  to  study  by  the  flickering 
firelight — preparing  himself,  heart  and 
soul,  for  these  very  crises  in  his  life. 

There  was  something  more  than 
64 


GREAT  HEART" 


human  in  Abraham  Lincoln's  charity. 
No  mortal  man  was  ever  more  possessed 
of  the  love  that  " suffer eth  long  and  is 
kind; — beareth  all  things,  believeth  all 
things,  hopeth  all  things,  endureth  all 
things." 

People  understood  him  the  more 
slowly  because  of  his  many  stories, 
which  were  so  unexpected  and  strange 
that  those  who  heard  them  failed  to 
comprehend  their  deep  import.  When 
self-appointed  delegations  came  to  pro- 
test against  this  or  to  urge  that,  the 
kindness  of  his  heart  always  rescued  the 
situation  with  a  story. 

And  those  stories!  The  sympathy 
in  them  was  exquisite.  Instead  of  hid- 
ing a  sting  they  were  full  of  balm  and 
the  oil  of  gladness  for  the  smarts  and 
wounds  of  his  listeners.  Men  some- 
times scoffed  because  Lincoln  laughed 
while  relating  them.  Rut  he  did  not 
65 


THE  HEART  OF  LINCOLN 

laugh  at  his  stories  so  much  as  with  his 
hearers,  from  the  pure  joy  of  giving 
pleasure.  If  ever  there  was  "a  face 
illumined"  by  the  glowing  heart  behind 
it,  it  was  Abraham  Lincoln's.  That  is 
why  a  woman  left  him  one  day,  exclaim- 
ing: 

"They  say  'Mr.  Lincoln's  an  ugly 
man/  It's  a  wicked  lie — I  think  he  has 
the  loveliest  face  I  ever  saw!" 

It  may  have  been  "homely,"  but  Mr. 
Lincoln's  face  was  never  "ugly."  It 
often  shone  "like  the  face  of  an  angel," 
for  his  fervent  sympathy  made  him  like 
an  angel  of  light  to  many  a  breaking 
heart. 

It  was  his  heart  that  prompted  the 
Emancipation  Proclamation  long  be- 
fore it  was  promulgated — but  his  head 
held  it  back  until  the  fullness  of  the  time 
was  come.  The*i  he  announced  it  with 
fear  and  trembling,  but  afterwards  his 
heart  rejoiced. 

66 


'GREAT  HEART" 


The  Gettysburg  Address  is  warm 
with  the  rare  love  of  Lincoln's  life. 
There  is  a  new  story,  which  illustrates 
his  ever  ready  sympathy — of  a  shy  old 
Quakeress  who  fainted  in  front  of  the 
speaker's  stand  shortly  before  he  rose 
to  deliver  that  immortal  address.  He 
saw  the  crowd  pressing  tighter  around 
her,  so  he  came  at  once  to  the  rescue. 

"Here,"  he  commanded,  "hand  that 
lady  up  to  me."  Tenderly  placing  the 
unconscious  woman  in  the  rocking- 
chair  reserved  for  himself,  he  half -knelt 
beside  her,  so  when  she  began  to  revive, 
she  found  herself  being  fanned  anx- 
iously by  the  President  of  the  United 
States — in  the  face  and  eyes  of  about 
fifteen  thousand  people!  This  was  too 
much  for  the  shrinking  old  lady  in  plain 
garb. 

"I — feel — better  now,"  she  pro- 
tested feebly.  "I  want — to — to  go — 
back  there,"  pointing  to  where  her  hus- 
67 


THE  HEART  OF  LINCOLN 

band  stood  looking  up  at  her  in  won- 
dering solicitude. 

"O,  no,  indeed!"  laughed  Mr.  Lin- 
coln kindly.  "You're  all  right  up  here. 
It  was  all  we  could  do  to  pull  you  up 
out  of  that  crowd,  and  we  could  never 
stick  you  down  into  it  again!" 

Thus  reassured  the  simple  old  lady 
forgot  the  thirty  thousand  eyes  while 
she  listened,  sitting  among  the  most  il- 
lustrious men  of  her  day,  to  a  short, 
simple  speech — but  one  of  the  sublimest 
addresses  ever  delivered. 

A  young  theological  student,  named 
Henry  E.  Jacobs,  had  worked  his  way 
up  close  to  the  speaker's  platform  dur- 
ing Edward  Everett's  two-hour  ora- 
tion. He  has  recently  described  Mr. 
Lincoln's  manner  in  delivering  his  brief 
address  on  this  great  occasion. 

"I  watched  the  President  closely," 
said  the  Rev.  Dr.  Jacobs,  fifty  years 
68 


"GREAT  HEART" 


afterward.  "When  he  saw  that  Mr. 
Everett's  long  oration  was  drawing  to  a 
close,  he  took  from  an  inside  pocket  two 
or  three  small  leaves  of  paper  and  be- 
gan to  read  them  with  his  eye-glasses 
perched  near  the  end  of  his  nose,  glanc- 
ing furtively  over  them  to  right  and 
left,  like  a  schoolboy  about  to  be  called 
on  to  recite  a  poorly  prepared  lesson. 
Rut  he  gave  the  closest  attention  to  the 
final  words  of  the  orator  of  the  day, 
and,  becoming  absorbed,  he  absently 
crammed  his  mussed-up  manuscript 
back  into  the  capacious  pocket. 

"During  the  singing  of  a  dirge,  writ- 
ten by  a  Gettysburg  man,  President 
Lincoln  drew  forth  the  few  pieces  of 
paper  and  conned  them  over  till  the 
time  came  for  him  to  deliver  it. 

"Holding  those  few  precious  pages, 
now  in  one  hand,  now  in  the  other,  he 
looked  at  them  casually — his  glasses 
still  astride  the  tip  of  his  nose — as  if 


THE  HEART  OF  LINCOLN 

reading — until  he  came  to  the  closing 
words,  'of  the  people,  by  the  people, 
for  the  people/  he  held  the  little  sheets 
straight  down  before  him  in  both  hands 
and  bowed  as  he  pronounced  the  prep- 
ositions coff  'by'  and  'for' — to  right, 
to  left  and  to  the  front — then,  straight- 
ening up  to  his  full  height,  he  spread 
out  his  long  arms  (the  pages  were  then 
in  his  right  hand)  as  he  impressively 
uttered  the  final  words,  'shall  not — 
perish  from — the  earth.' 

"It  is  absurd  to  say  the  President 
was  not  applauded  on  that  occasion. 
He  was  interrupted  several  times,  and 
roundly  cheered  at  the  close  of  his 
speech. 

"Not  a  train  left  Gettysburg  all  day 
until  the  President's  special  went  out 
that  night.  In  the  afternoon  there 
were  some  services  in  the  Presbyterian 
church.  I  don't  remember  who  the 
70 


"GREAT  HEART" 


speaker  was — but  he  was  not  a  man  of 
national  renown. 

"Yet  President  Lincoln  insisted  on 
going  to  hear  him.  He  invited  Secre- 
tary-of- State  Seward  to  accompany 
him,  then  sent  for  old  John  Burns,  the 
village  cobbler,  who  had  gone  into  the 
fight  in  his  Sunday  clothes  and  distin- 
guished himself  for  bravery.  He  was 
afterward  immortalized  by  Bret  Harte 
as  the  hero  of  the  ballad  'John  Burns  of 
Gettysburg.5  The  President  invited 
the  Gettysburg  cobbler  to  go  with  him 
to  the  church  and  it  was  the  proudest 
hour  in  John  Burns's  life  when  he 
marched  through  the  streets  of  the  town 
with  the  President  of  the  United  States 
on  one  arm  and  the  Secretary  of  State 
on  the  other. 

"In    this    simple    act    Mr.    Lincoln 

meant  to  honor  every  hero  in  the  town, 

for  there  were  other  men  of  Gettysburg 

who  had  risked  and  given  their  lives  for 

71 


THE  HEART  OF  LINCOLN 

their  country  in  that  three  days'  con- 
flict— the  greatest  battle  in  the  heroic 
history  of  the  world." 

As    to    the    speech    itself,    it    seems 
strange  now  that  of  all  men,  Edwin 
M.  Stanton,  the  Secretary  of  War,  who 
was  not  even  present  at  Gettysburg  on 
that  occasion,  should  have  been  among 
the  first  to  appreciate  the  simple  gran- 
deur    of     the     Gettysburg     Address. 
Stanton — rude,  sneering,  caustic,  con- 
temptuous   Stanton — who    had    taken 
almost    devilish    delight    in    insulting 
Lincoln    when    they    first    met,    eight 
years  earlier,  in  the  great  McCormick 
Reaper  case — Stanton,  who  had  called 
Mr.    Lincoln    a    gorilla,    an    imbecile 
and  a  fool — with  many  a  profane  ex- 
pletive— up  to  the  very  day  the  Presi- 
dent made  him  war  secretary!     Mind 
alone  could  never  have  conquered  the 
obdurate    soul   of    Secretary    Stanton. 
It  was  Lincoln's  heart  that  wrought 
72 


"GREAT  HEART" 


this     greatest     miracle     of     his     life. 

In  spite  of  Stanton's  atrocious  treat- 
ment of  him,  President  Lincoln  recog- 
nized the  sterling  worth  and  patriotism 
of  his  motives  so  he  said  he  was  glad  to 
bear  Stanton's  snarling  ways  for  the 
good  the  Secretary  could  do  the  nation. 
People  at  home  and  abroad  freely  criti- 
cized Mr.  Lincoln  for  allowing  his  Sec- 
retary of  War  to  oppose  and  stultify 
him  in  so  many  ways,  often  doing  and 
saying  trivial,  annoying  things.  But, 
little  by  little,  as  a  trainer  breaks  a  frac- 
tious horse,  Lincoln  tightened  his  rein, 
until  one  day,  with  the  utmost  kindness, 
yet  with  adamantine  firmness,  the 
President  said: 

"Mr.  Secretary,  it  will  have  to  be 
done." 

And  it  was  done. 


73 


HIS  CHANGE  OF  HEART 

A  colored  seamstress  in  the  White 
House  tells  a  sad  story  of  Lincoln's 
love  for  his  children.  Willie,  the 
second  living  son,  had  taken  a  severe 
cold,  but  the  doctor  said  there  was  no 
danger,  and  advised  Mrs.  Lincoln  to 
go  on  and  give  a  grand  reception  for 
which  thousands  of  invitations  had  been 
issued.  While  this  function  was  in 
progress  in  the  East  Room  it  was  found 
that  Willie  was  very  ill  indeed. 

"During  the  evening  Mrs.  Lincoln 
came  upstairs  several  times  and  stood 
by  the  bedside  of  the  suffering  boy. 
She  loved  him  with  a  mother's  heart, 
and  her  anxiety  was  great.  The  night 
passed  slowly,  morning  came,  and 
Willie  was  worse.  He  lingered  a  few 
74 


HIS  CHANGE  OF  HEART 

days  and  died.  God  called  the  beau- 
tiful spirit  home,  and  the  house  of  joy 
was  turned  into  a  house  of  mourning. 

"I  was  worn  out  with  watching,  and 
was  not  in  the  room  when  Willie  died, 
but  I  was  immediately  sent  for.  I  as- 
sisted in  washing  and  dressing  him,  and 
then  laid  him  on  the  bed,  when  Mr.  Lin- 
coln came  in.  I  never  saw  a  man  so 
bowed  down  with  grief.  He  came  to 
the  bed,  lifted  the  cover  from  the  face  of 
the  child,  gazed  at  it  long  and  earnestly, 
murmuring: 

"  'My  poor  boy!  He  was  too  good 
for  this  earth.  God  has  called  him 
home.  I  know  he  is  much  better  off  in 
Heaven,  but  then  we  loved  him  so!  It 
is  hard — hard — to  have  him  die!' 

"Great  sobs  choked  his  utterance. 
He  buried  his  head  in  his  hands,  and  his 
tall  form  was  convulsed  with  emotion. 
I  stood  at  the  foot  of  the  bed,  my  eyes 
full  of  tears,  looking  at  the  man  in  si- 
75 


THE  HEART  OF  LINCOLN 

lent,  awe-stricken  wonder.  His  grief 
unnerved  him,  and  made  him  like  a 
weak,  passive  child.  I  did  not  dream 
that  his  rugged  nature  could  be  so 
moved;  I  shall  never  forget  those 
solemn  moments.  There  is  a  grandeur 
as  well  as  a  simplicity  about  the  picture 
that  will  never  fade. 

"Mrs.  Lincoln  was  inconsolable.  In 
one  of  her  paroxysms  of  grief  the  Presi- 
dent kindly  bent  over  his  wife,  took  her 
by  the  arm  and  gently  led  her  to  a 
window.  With  a  stately  gesture  he 
pointed  to  the  lunatic  asylum,  as  he  said : 

"  'Mother,  do  you  see  that  large  white 
building  on  the  hill  yonder?  Try  to 
control  your  grief  or  it  will  drive  you 
mad,  and  we  may  have  to  send  you 
there/  " 

This  anxious  warning  was  no  misap- 
prehension.    Mary  Todd's  girlish  ambi- 
tion to  be  mistress  of  the  White  House 
76 


HIS  CHANGE  OF  HEART 

had  been  fulfilled— but  with  how  many 
sorrows!  The  President's  mansion 
was  a  house  of  mourning  nearly  all  the 
time  the  Lincolns  lived  in  it,  until  the 
terrible  tragedy  that  drove  them  out  of 
it.  Mrs.  Lincoln  never  again  went 
into  the  room  in  which  Willie  died,  nor 
would  she  enter  the  Blue  Room  after 
his  funeral  was  held  there. 

Although  the  Lincolns  had  lost  their 
baby  boy,  Eddie,  years  before  leaving 
Springfield,  the  death  of  Willie  almost 
unhinged  the  reason  of  the  fond 
mother,  and  weighed  down  the  father's 
life  with  a  sadness  he  never  could  shake 
off.  An  attendant  in  the  White  House 
saw  the  President  walking  up  and  down 
the  spacious  chamber,  and  heard  him 
saying  to  himself: 

"This  is  the  hardest  trial  of  my  life. 
Why  is  it?     Why  is  it?" 

A  caller,  wishing  to  comfort  the 
heart-broken  President,  told  him  that 
77 


THE  HEART  OF  LINCOLN 

good  people  all  over  the  land  were 
praying  for  him.  He  replied  grate- 
fully: 

"I  am  glad  to  hear  that.  I  want 
them  to  pray  for  me.  I  need  their 
prayers." 

The  chastening  effect  of  this  great 
grief  was  manifest  in  many  ways.  He 
told  an  intimate  friend  that  this  be- 
reavement had  brought  him  closer  to 
the  Father  than  any  previous  experi- 
ence. When  he,  as  President-elect, 
said  good-by  to  his  Springfield  neigh- 
bors, he  referred  to  "Divine  Provi- 
dence" in  the  abstract.  But  as  the  cares 
and  responsibilities  of  the  nation 
weighed  him  down,  the  divine  Being 
came  to  present  Himself  as  a  concrete 
personality.  His  accountability  to 
God,  as  well  as  to  the  people,  made  him 
take  a  common-sense  view  of  his  own 
weakness  and  need  of  help.  He  said  to 
Noah  Brooks,  a  Western  newspaper 
78 


HIS  CHANGE  OF  HEART 

correspondent  who  often  called  at  the 
White  House: 

"I  should  be  the  veriest  shallow  and 
self-conceited  blockhead  upon  the  foot- 
stool if,  in  the  discharge  of  the  duties 
that  are  put  upon  me  in  this  place,  I 
should  hope  to  get  along  without  the 
wisdom  that  comes  from  One  who  is 
stronger  and  wiser  than  all  others." 

He  remarked  to  a  distinguished  min- 
ister from  New  York,  not  long  after 
the  beginning  of  the  war: 

"If  it  were  not  for  my  firm  belief  in 
an  overruling  Providence  it  would  be 
difficult  for  me,  in  the  midst  of  such 
complications  of  affairs,  to  keep  my 
reason  on  its  seat.  But  I  am  confident 
that  the  Almighty  has  His  plans  and 
will  work  them  out:  and  so,  whether 
we  see  it  or  not,  they  will  be  the  wisest 
and  best  for  us." 

Different  members  of  the  President's 
79 


THE  HEART  OF  LINCOLN 


life-guard  have  told  of  finding  him 
dressed  and  reading  the  Bible  before 
the  rest  of  the  family  were  up  in  the 
morning;  and  of  seeing  him  on  his 
knees  in  an  agony  of  prayer  long  after 
the  others  had  retired  for  the  night. 

While  friends  were  urging  him  to 
emancipate  the  slaves,  President  Lin- 
coln prayed  a  good  deal.  This  atti- 
tude of  mind,  referred  to  by  members 
of  the  Cabinet,  is  revealed  in  the  closing 
words  of  the  Emancipation  Proclama- 
tion: 

"And  upon  this  act,  sincerely  be- 
lieved to  be  an  act  of  justice  warranted 
by  the  Constitution,  I  invoke  the  consid- 
erate judgment  of  mankind  and  the 
gracious  favor  of  Almighty  God." 

He  issued  this  proclamation  when  he 
felt  sure  that  it  could  be  delayed  no 
longer.  "Public  sentiment  would  sus- 
tain it — many  of  his  warmest  friends 
and  supporters  demanded  it — and  he 
80 


HIS  CHANGE  OF  HEART 

had  promised  God  that  he  would  do  it." 
Before  this  he  had  talked  much  with 
some  of  his  advisers  of  his  belief  that 
God  would  perform  the  impossible. 
Yet  delegations  of  ministers  came  to 
coach  the  President  concerning  the  will 
of  God,  as  though  there  were  no  direct 
way  for  him  to  find  out  the  divine  plan. 
One  day,  when  he  had  the  Emancipa- 
tion Proclamation  all  ready,  and  in  his 
pocket  waiting  for  the  right  juncture 
of  the  war  and  affairs  of  State  before 
announcing  it,  a  clergyman  called  and 
asserted,  with  solemn  unction,  that  he 
had  received  a  special  revelation  that 
the  right  psychological  moment  for 
freeing  the  slaves  had  arrived,  and  that 
he  had  come  from  Chicago  to  bring  the 
divine  message. 

"Well,  now,  ain't  that  strange?"  said 

the  President,  with  a  smile  the  minister 

did  not  then  understand.     "Here  I  am, 

studying  that  very  question  day  and 

81 


THE  HEART  OF  LINCOLN 

night,  for  weeks  and  months — and  I 
am  the  one  to  act  in  this  important 
matter,  too — so  ain't  it  rather  odd  that 
the  only  channel  the  Divine  Master  can 
send  this  message  by  is  the  roundabout 
route  by  way  of  that  awful,  wicked  city 
of  Chicago?" 

The  pious  reflections  and  exhorta- 
tions of  ministers  and  others  who  as- 
sumed to  have  a  monopoly  of  heavenly 
wisdom,  tried  even  Abraham  Lincoln's 
long-suffering  patience.  Once,  "in  the 
burden  and  heat  of  the  day,"  a  clergy- 
man said,  with  unctuous  solemnity,  "I 
hope  the  Lord  is  on  our  side." 
Mr.  Lincoln  promptly  answered: 
"I  am  not  at  all  concerned  about  that 
— but  it  is  my  constant  anxiety  and 
prayer  that  I  and  this  nation  shall  be 
on  the  Lord's  side!" 

More    than    a    year    after    Willie's 
82 


HIS  CHANGE  OF  HEART 

death  the  President  remarked  to  a  vis- 
itor: 

"I  made  a  solemn  vow  before  God 
that  if  General  Lee  was  driven  back 
I  would  crown  the  result  with  a  declara- 
tion of  freedom  to  the  slaves,  and  I  did 
this  after  Antietam." 

It  was  natural  to  a  man  whose  re- 
ligion was  a  matter  of  experimental 
common  sense  to  find  a  crisis  in  his  re- 
ligious life  in  the  great  crisis  of  the  life 
of  the  whole  nation.  After  the  battle 
of  Gettysburg  the  President  went  to 
call  on  General  Sickles,  who  had  lost  a 
leg  in  an  engagement  there.  Mr.  Lin- 
coln related  to  the  wounded  general  his 
religious  experience  in  connection  with 
the  great  battle: 

"I  had  no  fears  for  Gettysburg,  and 

if  you  really  want  to  know  I  will  tell 

you  why.     In  the  stress  and  pinch  of 

the  campaign  there,  I  went  to  my  room 

83 


THE  HEART  OF  LINCOLN 

and  got  down  on  my  knees  and  prayed 
Almighty  God  for  victory  at  Gettys- 
burg. I  told  Him  that  this  is  His 
country  and  the  war  is  His  war,  but 
that  we  really  couldn't  stand  another 
Fredericksburg  or  Chancellorsville. 

"And  then  and  there  I  made  a 
solemn  vow  with  my  Maker  that  if  He 
would  stand  by  the  boys  at  Gettysburg 
I  would  stand  by  Him.  And  He  did, 
and  I  will! 

" After  this,  I  don't  know  how  it  was, 
and  it  is  not  for  me  to  explain,  but 
somehow  or  other,  a  sweet  comfort 
crept  into  my  soul,  that  God  Almightj^ 
had  taken  the  whole  thing  into  His 
own  hands,  and  we  were  bound  to  win 
at  Gettysburg." 

In  the  last  year  of  his  life  a  minister 
from  Illinois  asked  President  Lincoln 
if  he  was  a  Christian!     Instead  of  re- 
senting this  impertinence,  as  many  a 
84 


HIS  CHANGE  OF  HEART 

man  in  his  position  would  have  done — 
especially  a  man  who,  in  his  letters, 
speeches,  conversation  and  daily  life 
had  given  unmistakable  evidences  of 
his  devotion — Mr.  Lincoln  replied  as 
simply  as  a  child: 

"When  I  left  Springfield  I  asked  the 
people  to  pray  for  me:  I  was  not  a 
Christian.  When  I  buried  my  son — 
the  severest  trial  of  my  life — I  was  not 
a  Christian.  But  when  I  went  to  Get- 
tysburg and  saw  the  graves  of  thou- 
sands of  our  soldiers,  I  then  and  there 
consecrated  myself  to  Christ." 


85 


HIS  LOVE  FOR  LITTLE  TAD 

Mr.  Lincoln  seldom  spoke  of  Willie. 
Robert  was  away  at  Harvard.  When 
he  came  home  from  college  he  went 
right  to  the  front  as  one  of  General 
Grant's  aides.  Thus  only  Thomas, 
nicknamed  "Tad,  the  pet  of  the  na- 
tion," was  left  at  home.  The  boy  was 
passionately  affectionate — his  father's 
inseparable  companion.  A  word  from 
the  father  would  make  the  boy  laugh 
gleefully,  or  melt  him  to  tears.  He  did 
not  seem  to  wish  for  any  other  play- 
mate. One  of  the  President's  life- 
guard has  recorded  that  the  only  times 
Mr.  Lincoln  ever  seemed  happy  were 
while  they  were  romping  through  the 
stately  rooms  of  the  Executive  Man- 
sion together,  whooping  like  wild  In- 
86 


HIS  LOVE  FOR  LITTLE  TAD 

dians,  playing  horse,  carrying  the  boy 
"pickaback,"  or  holding  him  high  on  his 
shoulders,  where  he  had  been  in  the 
habit  of  carrying  both  boys  when  Willie 
was  playing  too.  The  loss  of  the  older 
boy  seemed  to  intensify  the  father's  de- 
votion to  little  Tad. 

At  such  times  the  boy's  small  cup  of 
joy  was  brimful,  and  he  expressed  it 
by  chuckling  and  shouting: 

"Papa-day!     O  Papa-day!" 

The  little  fellow  had  an  impediment 
in  his  speech,  due  to  a  slight  cleft  in  his 
palate,  so  that  strangers  could  not 
readily  understand  him.  But  his 
father  understood  his  afflicted  boy — 
every  word!  No  matter  who  was  with 
the  President,  or  what  grave  matters 
might  be  discussed  by  Seward,  Stanton 
or  Sumner — if  little  Tad  spoke,  his 
father  was  all  attention,  bending  fondly 
down  to  the  boy,  for  the  time  oblivious 
87 


THE  HEART  OF  LINCOLN 

of  all  else.  Senators  and  secretaries 
were  sometimes  annoyed  by  Tad's  in- 
terruptions, but  their  very  impatience 
seemed  to  intensify  Mr.  Lincoln's 
yearning  over  his  lonely,  afflicted  son 
with  a  passion  of  tenderness  which  was 
much  more  than  mere  doting  indul- 
gence. 

During  the  long,  grave  Cabinet 
meetings  Tad  played  about,  falling 
asleep  on  the  floor  or  climbing  into  his 
father's  lap  and  taking  a  nap  there. 
He  accompanied  the  President  to  For- 
tress Monroe,  and,  clinging  to  his  fath- 
er's hand,  they  stalked  and  trotted 
through  the  streets  of  fallen  Richmond 
together. 

While  the  President  was  making  his 
last,  happy  speech  from  the  northern 
portico  of  the  White  House,  in  re- 
sponse to  a  serenade  congratulating  him 
because  the  war  was  over,  little  Tad 
88 


HIS  LOVE  FOR  LITTLE  TAD 

stood  by,  grabbing  the  leaves  of  his 
father's  manuscript  as  he  dropped  them 
for  the  boy  to  catch.  When  they 
floated  down  too  slowly  to  suit  him, 
Tad  tugged  the  tails  of  the  President's 
long  black  coat  and  demanded  in  a 
shrill,  piping  voice: 

"Give  me  'nother  paper,  Papa-day!" 

It  was  at  the  close  of  this  carefully 
written  address,  beginning,  "We  meet 
this  evening,  not  in  sorrow,  but  in  glad- 
ness of  heart,"  that  the  President,  as  he 
was  about  to  retire  within  the  mansion, 
called  out  to  the  serenading  "Northern" 
band  to  play  "Dixie,"  joyously  adding, 
"We  have  a  right  to  'Dixie'  now!" 

This  expression  of  his  heart-love  for 
the  South,  in  spite  of  all  the  bitterness 
fostered  against  him  in  the  rebelling 
States,  was  Lincoln's  last  public  utter- 
ance. 

When  he  went  into  the  house  Mrs. 
Lincoln  called  his  attention  to  the  fact 
89 


THE  HEART  OF  LINCOLN 

that  he  might  easily  have  been  shot 
while  speaking,  and  begged  him  not  to 
expose  himself  so  recklessly  again. 

According  to  a  trusted  servant  in  the 
White  House,  President  Lincoln,  dur- 
ing the  last  week  of  his  life,  spoke  in 
the  highest  praise  of  General  Robert  E. 
Lee.  Robert  Lincoln  had  just  re- 
turned from  Virginia  with  General 
Grant,  and  showed  a  photograph  he 
had  of  the  Confederate  commander  to 
his  father.  The  President  gazed  ear- 
nestly at  the  picture  and  remarked  to 
his  son: 

"It  is  the  face  of  a  noble,  brave  man." 

Before  the  sad  death  of  "Stonewall" 
Jackson,  he  had  been  heard  to  say  of 
the  Southern  general: 

"He  is  a  brave,  Presbyterian  soldier. 
If  we,  in  the  North,  had  more  such  gen- 
erals, this  war  would  not  drag  along 
so." 

90 


HIS  LOVE  FOR  LITTLE  TAD 

Lincoln,  a  Southerner  himself,  and 
married  to  a  Southern  lady,  had  great 
tenderness  for  the  South.  There  was 
a  compartment  in  his  private  cabinet 
crammed  with  threats  of  assassination. 
To  these  he  never  referred  except  to 
say  there  was  no  use  of  taking  precau- 
tions or  "gettin'  skeert,"  as  he  pro- 
nounced it. 

"If  they  want  to  kill  me,"  he  said  with 
a  smile,  "they'll  do  it  somehow." 

He  lived  his  life  "with  a  heart  for  any 
fate,"  in  the  spirit  of  the  Man  who 
breathed  out  His  love  for  all  mankind 
on  the  first  Good  Friday,  long  ago, 
saying : 

"Father,  forgive  them,  they  know  not 
what  they  do." 

Good  Friday,  1865,  fell  on  the  four- 
teenth of  April.  They  had  the  regu- 
lar Cabinet  meeting — Lincoln's  last. 
At  its  close  they  congratulated  the 
President  on  his  improved  appeaf- 
91 


THE  HEART  OF  LINCOLN 

ance  already,  for  his  face  had  grown 
more  and  more  ghastly  and  drawn  and 
anxious  all  through  the  terrible  days 
and  nights  of  the  war.  To  Stanton  he 
looked  no  longer  like  a  gorilla  or  an  im- 
becile, for  the  war  secretary  remarked 
that  day  to  the  Attorney  General, 
"Didn't  our  chief  look  grand  to-day!" 

That  very  night  the  conquering  hero 
became,  in  fact,  what  he  had  long  been 
at  heart — a  martyr.  The  next  morn- 
ing, at  twenty-two  minutes  after  seven, 
when  the  heart  of  Lincoln  ceased  to 
beat,  it  was  Stanton — heart-conquered, 
loyal,  devoted,  loving,  heart-broken 
Stanton — who  closed  the  dying  eyes  of 
his  tender-hearted  chief;  then  he  turned 
away,  his  whole  frame  shaking  with 
suppressed  emotion  as  he  whispered 
tenderly : 

"Now  he  belongs  to  the  ages!" 


92 


THE  HEARTBROKEN  PEOPLE 

The  world  stood  aghast,  and  the 
American  people  were  stricken  with 
grief.  Even  the  Southern  leaders  sud- 
denly realized  that  the  South  had  lost 
its  best  friend  in  the  North.  As  for 
the  Northern  people,  they  met  on  Pa- 
triots' Day  (April  19th)  in  their  own 
places,  in  city  and  country,  and 

"Wept  with  the  passion  of  an  angry  grief/' 

while  the  simple  funeral  services  were 
going  on  in  the  East  Room  of  the 
White  House.  Twenty-five  millions 
of  men,  women  and  children  are  esti- 
mated to  have  gathered  all  over  the  civ- 
ilized world  and  sobbed  out  their  sor- 
row over  the  death  of  the  well-beloved 
President.  Strong  men,  never  known 
93 


THE  HEART  OF  LINCOLN 

to  weep  over  their  own  troubles  or  pri- 
vate sorrows,  broke  down  and  cried  like 
little  children  when  they  heard  of  the 
murder  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 

But  Lincoln  did  not  become  a  multi- 
millionaire in  hearts  at  a  single  bound. 
The  people  mourned  the  man  more 
than  the  President.  It  was  by  no  acci- 
dental combination  or  sequence  of 
events  that  the  whole  world  wept  by 
Lincoln's  bier.  He  began  by  endear- 
ing himself  to  his  own  family,  and  a 
few  backwoods  relations  and  neighbors. 
Then  New  Salem  learned  to  love  him, 
as  it  never  loved  any  one  else.  So  of 
Springfield  and  the  Eighth  Judicial 
Circuit  of  Illinois. 

When  the  supporters  and  henchmen 
of  Seward,  Chase  and  Cameron  came 
to  that  Chicago  Convention,  in  1860, 
they  utterly  failed  to  comprehend  Lin- 
coln's strange  popularity.  In  their 
94 


HEARTBROKEN  PEOPLE 

perplexity  they  did  not  grasp  the  fact 
that  they  were  contending  with  the 
"principalities  and  powers"  of  Abra- 
ham Lincoln's  tender  and  all-inclusive 
heart. 

They  laughed  at  the  very  idea  of  a 
"rail-splitter  president,"  and  sneered 
at  his  "coarse,  clumsy  jokes."  Then 
they  tried  to  account  for  all  they  could 
not  comprehend  by  calling  him  "a  man 
of  the  people."  This  was  true  in  a 
sense,  but  only  in  the  highest  sense. 
Lincoln  was  "the  man  with  a  heart" — 
and  the  people  saw  through  and  recog- 
nized him  as  the  one  "man  after  their 
own  hearts." 

Douglas,  his  life-long  rival,  knowing 
something  of  his  popularity,  remarked 
when  he  heard  of  Lincoln's  nomination : 
"Every  tar-barrel  in  Illinois  will  be 
burning  to-night."  This  enthusiasm 
spread  all  over  the  North  like  a  prairie 
fire. 

95 


THE  HEART  OF  LINCOLN 

On  a  tidal  wave  of  heart  responding 
to  heart,  Lincoln  was  carried 

"From  prairie  cabin  up  to  Capitol." 

During  the  war,  which  quickly  fol- 
lowed, a  large  part  of  the  patriotism  of 
the  soldiers  was  their  personal  love  for 
Abraham  Lincoln.  To  them  he  seemed 
the  living  personification  of  their  coun- 
try, threatened  and  wronged.  "Father 
Abraham"  meant  more  to  them  even 
than  "Uncle  Sam,"  in  those  awful  days. 

When  President  Lincoln  issued  call 
after  call  for  soldiers,  and  for  more 
soldiers,  and  still  more,  men  and  boys 
seemed  never  to  tire  of  responding: 

"We  are  coming,  Father  Abraham, 
Three  hundred  thousand  more." 

Americans  are  sometimes  accused  of 
a   certain   lack   of  patriotism   because 
they    fail    to    rise    when    "The    Star- 
Spangled    Banner"    is    played,    some- 
96 


HEARTBROKEN  PEOPLE 

times  flippantly,  in  a  musical  medley. 
But  the  men  and  boys  of  '61,  as  well  as 
those  of  '76,  give  the  lie  direct  and 
eternal  to  all  such  false  accusations. 
Patriotism,  in  the  United  States  of 
America,  is  much  more  than  a  feeling 
which  finds  its  expression  and  satisfac- 
tion in  mere  matters  of  sentiment  and 
etiquette — it  is  the  religion  of  country. 

The  "Boys  in  Blue"  said  among 
themselves,  in  exulting  tones  when 
they  spoke  of  Lincoln,  "He  cares  for 
us!  he  loves  us!"  and  they  cheerfully, 
and  even  humorously — to  be  like  him — - 
marched  into  the  jaws  of  death  for  his 
dear  sake.  It  was  a  far  different  love 
from  that  inspired  in  his  generals  and 
grenadiers  by  Napoleon,  for  their  loy- 
alty flagged  and  failed.  They  knew 
that  Napoleon's  ambition  was  for  him- 
self first,  then  for  them,  as  a  means  of 
gaining  it.  It  was  Napoleon's  want  of 
97 


THE  HEART  OF  LINCOLN 

heart  that  made  him  a  colossal  failure, 
while  Lincoln's  self -giving  soul  crowned 
his  life,  though  he  was  murdered,  with 
success  immortal.  Almost  from  baby- 
hood Lincoln  was  a  burning  and  shining 
light  emblazoning  in  letters  of  living 
fire  his  own  illustrious  words : 

"With    malice    toward    none;    with 

charity  for  all." 

•  ••••• 

Where  Tad  had  been  the  night 
of  Lincoln's  assassination  no  one  knew, 
but  Thomas  Pendel,  the  faithful  door- 
keeper of  the  White  House,  relates 
that  the  boy  came  in  very  late  at  the 
basement  door  and  clambered  up  the 
lower  stairway,  crying — "Tom  Pen! 
Tom  Pen!  They've  killed  Papa-day! 
They've  killed  my  Papa-day!" 

They  brought  Mrs.  Lincoln  home  in 
a  state  of  collapse.     The  only  wonder 
is  that  the  horrible  scene  in  which  she 
98 


HEARTBROKEN  PEOPLE 

had  participated  did  not  rob  her  of 
reason  altogether.  During  the  gusts 
of  grief  to  which  she  gave  way  in  spite 
of  herself,  little  Tad  would  look  up  at 
her  in  terror,  and  cry  out: 

"Don't  cry  so,  Mamma,  or  you'll 
break  my  heart!" 

Then  the  sorrow-stricken  mother 
would  crush  the  child  in  a  passionate 
embrace,  cover  his  upturned  face  with 
kisses  and  tears,  and  summon  all  the 
resolution  she  could  for  his  sake. 
Standing  between  his  mother  and  his 
small  brother,  poor  Robert  had  need  of 
all  the  manly  tenderness  of  his  nature 
— "so  like  his  father's,"  they  said. 

The  terrific  strain  was  too  great  for 
the  desolate  little  woman,  widowed  by 
the  most  hideous  cruelty,  and  she  lay 
utterly  prostrated,  unable  to  go  on  that 
winding  journey  from  Washington  to 
Springfield,  and  be  present  at  the  burial 
99 


THE  HEART  OF  LINCOLN 

of  the  bodies  of  her  husband  and  Wil- 
lie— unable  for  many  weeks  even  to 
leave  the  White  House  to  the  new 
President,  Andrew  Johnson,  and  his 
large  family. 

Poor  little  Tad  was  lonely.  He 
missed  his  father  sadly.  He  would 
wander  through  the  great,  empty  rooms 
as  though  he  were  looking  for  some  one. 
Many  times  a  day  he  was  heard  to 
murmur: 

"O  Papa-day!  where's  my  Papa-day? 
I'm  tired  of  playing  by  myself.  I  want 
to  play  'together' — only  a  little  while — 
just  this  once,  please,  Papa-day!" 

His  sense  of  loneliness  invaded  even 
his  dreams.  The  ever-watchful  door- 
keeper, or  one  of  the  life-guard,  would 
lie  down  beside  the  little  fellow  and  try 
to  soothe  and  comfort  him  through  the 
long,  troubled  nights. 

One  minute  he  seemed,  in  his  dreams, 
to  be  romping  once  more  with  his  great, 
100 


HEARTBROKEN  PEOPLE 

tall  playfellow,  gurgling,  chuckling  and 
crying  out: 

"Papa-day!     O  Papa-day!" 

Then  the  sense  of  his  great  loss  pene- 
trated his  sleep,  and  he  would  sob  out, 
"O  Papa-day,  where's  my  Papa-day?" 

"Your  papa's  gone,"  said  the  life- 
guard, hoarsely — "gone  to  Heaven." 

Little  Tad  listened  and  his  eyes 
opened  wide.  "Do  you  think  Papa- 
day's  happy  there?"  he  asked  eagerly. 

"Yes,  yes,  I'm  sure  of  it,  Taddie 
dear,  your  papa's  happy  now." 

"O,  I'm  glad,  so  glad!"  sighed  the 
little  boy — "for  Papa-day  never  was 
happy  here." 


THE   END 


101 


